Rev. Lora Young’s lack of willingness to assist a transgender woman recently out didn’t align with how available she actually was.
Young is the minister of the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, a congregation in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. (That’s in the Salt Lake valley.) I was a member of South Valley in recent years. After I came out as a woman who is transgender, another member recommended to me that I sit down and talk with her.
However, despite plenty of available times on Young’s calendar, she refused to meet more than three times in six months.
Young’s website says that she provides “spiritual direction” and that “Kindness is her primary theology.”
Rev. Lora Young (photo credit: South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society)
On Feb. 3, Young wrote, “My offer is to meet with you once in March and once in May of this church year. Then we can meet in August if you still desire support at that time.”
What’s funny, though, is that not long before that, Young said this in a newsletter to email subscribers: “I am also available for support during the week by appointment here: www.calendly.com/revlora”
Many times in a week were available.
How was that compatible with Young’s offer? (She said I could talk with her after services. However, I would have hoped so since it’s a mingling time. And I probably would have needed to do most services online.)
As I told Young, because of her amount of availability on her Calendly, I struggled to reconcile that with support she offered.
Rev. John Cooper, the congregation’s affiliated minister, also was opposed to providing the help I needed fresh out as a transgender woman.
Young was even though I told her that hate speech was sent directly to me and that I am being cut off from in-person visits with my children after coming out.
Young didn’t even want to provide the help I needed after Young got back from her family emergency. (And she didn’t.)
Cooper knew about the hate speech and that I was alone for Thanksgiving.
Rev. John Cooper (photo credit: South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society)
The matter was even worse is that Young chastised the congregation in relatively recent months, prior to this problem between me and her, for how they regarded folks. Given my familiarity with people in the congregation —and thus, the goodness of so many members of the congregation — Young probably is as bad at this as anyone in the congregation.
Young and Cooper were against providing the help I need in this season of my life despite becoming ministers in a tradition with the values like those that Unitarian Universalism has. Which includes love in action.
That is also a problem since they are at the head of a congregation that strives to be really LGBTQIA+ supportive, specifically.
And to my understanding, in the ballpark of the time frame where these issues occurred, there wasn’t even a minister for more than on a rare occasion for more than a few weeks.
I don’t even know how capable Young is at her job. She didn’t even get my name right after I told her it several times four to seven days earlier.
Young was a key reason why I moved from Utah to the Los Angeles area.
(Prior to meeting Young, I resigned from the congregation because Scott Renshaw, a SVUUS board member, said a handful of years ago that I should resign if I wasn’t going to attend regularly. So I resigned not relatively long thereafter.)
As big a reason as any and just one of two reasons I moved from Utah to the Los Angeles area? I ran into issues of accessing mental healthcare in Utah. For instance, in Utah, I wasn’t granted insurance coverage of a fairly basic hormone to treat a mental health condition called gender dysphoria. In California, I will be granted insurance coverage for body contouring.
However, that is all the extent of ease there has been for me in accessing mental healthcare in the City of Angels.
That has been a major letdown.
(Illustration by Chanelle Nibbelink for CalMatters)
And I’ve been even more surprised.
Even a gender clinic doesn’t take Medi-Cal, a state of California government program that covers healthcare for folks. And a pricing option beyond that is hardly affordable.
There have been problems regarding UCLA Health as well in terms of seeking mental health through receiving gender-affirming care.
Ronald Reagan UCLA Health Medical Center (photo credit: Daanish Bhatti)
Also, four therapists in the Los Angeles area have been difficult. It’s left me without the ability to access mental healthcare in a way that many seem to regard as a silver bullet.
One, a Cristina Rodriguez, didn’t want to meet any often for more than 2.5 weeks and would not talk about me having gender dysphoria. I also had to wait for six weeks to get into talk therapy with her. She also violated a boundary. And is that terribly ironic for a therapist to do?
Another, a Katy Hammer, didn’t attend work twice two weeks apart. And I learned about her not being there only when I arrived there once and was just a couple of blocks away another time. (Both times, I drove 30 minutes one way.) I’ve seen many therapists over the past eight years. None have even canceled twice. And only a few canceled even once.
Another, whose name I don’t know— we never met — asked to reschedule to the next day, only to then cancel the morning of that day.
Another, a Renato Perez, seemed to have deleted a message thread after I sent him the following message 12.5 hours after he sent a message at 2 p.m.:
“I am sorry — I just got your reply. (Usually, I check my email at the start and end of my work day, which ends at midnight PST.) I welcome the telehealth options!”
Perez claimed that “I don’t have the capacity to delete messages.” The problem with his claim is that I could see that the messages were deleted. Also, he ignored the thread and replied only after I asked in another email if he had blocked me. It seemed like he was not going to respond to my message quoted above. Especially since he replied fast to other messages.
I don’t know how much quality of work is in the Los Angeles area other than in entertainment and media.
Medical transition care is 100% essential to treat gender dysphoria.
Ironically, difficulties in accessing such care have negatively impacted my mental health.
After all, not only could I not be treated, but I couldn’t when I was seeking the care.
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The author makes about $6 per article on one of three platforms on which she writes. Through the others, she doesn’t make a cent. Please support the author via her Patreon.
For five-and-a-half of the past six-and-a-half years, Blake Wilkinson, a Utah native who currently lives and works in southern California, has rejected family.
A little background. Wilkinson, my brother, was headed to Brown University for college. Before he did, around the late summer of 2016, he told me that he said he was going in with the beliefs he held. I don’t know why he told me this since I already had said that I didn’t share his beliefs in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Also, the institution is not just a religion. It’s also a culture and a lifestyle, in which he and I were raised.)
One thing that has been on my mind a lot since then is that he perhaps could not accept yet that I didn’t believe in the Latter-day Saint church. Because it’s possible that he was talking with me as though at least deep down, I shared his beliefs. The least-likely reason I find is that he wanted to talk with me about what was on his heart regardless of what I believed.
Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: Brown University)
Wilkinson played for the Brown basketball team. During the 2016–17 season, there was a Pride game. Wilkinson refused to wear a Pride shirt that the players were required to wear in shootaround, while warming up. (After doing that, he was bumped from the B team in practice. I defended him to his coach. I told the coach that I support queer people and that I am queer. But I also told him that at the same time, the coach’s reaction was wrong. However, when I told Wilkinson that I did that, he expressed that he didn’t like that I did.)
In March or April of 2017, I posted on Facebook a Mormon Stories Podcast interview of an Alaska couple, Jake and Amy Malouf. They were excommunicated from the LDS church for publicly questioning it. My understanding is that as a result, Wilkinson asked my birth father to leave me without shelter. And my birth father, one surprising Sunday night as I checked out Utah Jazz-Portland Trail Blazers game highlights, did ask me to leave.
Later that year, Wilkinson unfriended me on Facebook. I made a comment to him on the social network that I regret. And I apologized and 100% meant it. However, he didn’t want to re-connect on the platform.
Since, Wilkinson has said that he will not associate with me due to my conflicts with my birth parents. One time, in April of last year, I was able to talk with him in person, which I asked him to do. We were in the same location because we were participating in a luncheon after one of our grandmothers’ funeral.
I talked heart with heart to him. It was about a year-and-a-half after he told my parents he was done with me. (I posted on reddit that my birth father, the mayor of his Utah town, posted signs in favor of police. The timing was what was key for me. He did that rather shortly after Minneapolis officers were charged with multiple felonies, including murder, in the death of George Floyd.) And I told Wilkinson at the luncheon location that if he still wanted space, OK.
I don’t know why I did that since he is at fault for the wedge between us. And sure enough, he seized on that, to say that he wanted space.
As a writer, I am always seeking to be sensitive. Wilkinson is a certified financial fiduciary. Which is great. Though not when it comes to sensitivity, perhaps.
Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: Salt Lake Community College)
When I came out as a transgender woman to my parents and siblings, Wilkinson’s response made me think that he was OK with it. He added that he still would not be associating with me.
Does that in a strong sense nullify his tolerance of me being queer?
He said that he doesn’t want to associate with me because I am at odds with my birth parents due to them having different religious and political views than I do.
It would be silly if that were the reason.
The reason why is because one of them first abused me in Oct. 2015. And since, they have each either abused me more. Or my birth father has enabled my birth mother’s behavior in this regard. I even went to a domestic abuse shelter because the therapist I was seeing recognized that I was in an abusive situation. (My birth parents have their moments. However, the tapestry here has been to be emotionally, verbally and psychologically abusive since I have been public about the church in a way that brings it negativity. And now, for being a transgender woman.)
Wilkinson also seems inconsistent about my criticism of me being at adds with my birth parents simply over religion and politics. My sister wrote an Instagram post that suggests that I made a “heartbreaking” decision. (And seems clear to anyone who knows us.) Which seems to be a reference mostly if not entirely to departing from the church.
I know that sibling relationships are different than parent-child relationships. However, when I asked Wilkinson if he was going to get on my sister given his reasons for getting on me, he ignored me.
Also, when I asked in 2019 if he would be willing to financially help me in some way, he started promoting the LDS church to me.
It’s amazing that while Wilkinson and I both are roughly in the Los Angeles area now, it doesn’t matter. That’s because we could not be further apart.
I did tell him that I care 0% about him and would not attend his funeral. And something else — I can’t remember what — expressing that I don’t care about him.
Scorched earth, to be sure. But now, four months later, I realized I don’t mean it. (I added that last sentence in Jan. 2024.) But only after years of shunning from him.
And he is one of just three reasons why my last name, legally, no longer is Wilkinson.
Blake Wilkinson (photo credit: University of Utah)
Wilkinson has a personality to act strongly when confronted with a problem. He was a Div. I athlete, always got astounding grades and today, seems to do relatively elite work. Or at least, he has made quick flights for work from southern California to northern Utah. He also demonstrates utmost loyalty. (The issue at hand results from his devotion to my birth parents.) His personality serves him well in various aspects of his life, I am sure.
But let’s just say that it hasn’t served me well.
And me lacking loyalty isn’t a moral shortcoming.
Wilkinson’s view of the church also likely is quite complex given that he met his wife through the church. He met her on his church mission and enjoys her and his in-law’s company today where he met her on his mission.
I still think fondly of times where I was Peter Pan and made him Captain Hook. And I wore a moth-eaten hat like Pan’s and a green polo. And made him wear a black, curly wig and a red bathrobe. And hold a hanger (the hook stand-in). And I think fondly of the many times we faced off in sports, despite the bounteous amounts of contention that accompanied it. (He is such a good athlete that the outcome of our sports games were always uncertain even though he is three-and-a-half years younger than me.) And he was beyond sweet to not start getting into basketball until around adolescence (and perhaps early teenage-hood) because he considered it to be my thing. He also was beyond sweet to replace “chicken” with “spaghetti” as his favorite food on a VIP board as a child.
And many times since, I have wondered what happened to that sensitivity.
Thomi Clinton is the head of the Transgender Health and Wellness Center, which has a handful of clinics in southern California. She is followed on Facebook by 11,000 people.
I, a woman who is transgender, tried to get resources through her organization. After a few months — months! — passed, nothing happened.
Yet, the center wanted to get funding through me.
The Transgender Health and Wellness Center wanted to get funding through me even though they didn’t provide any resources at all to me. (graphic credit: Transgender Health and Wellness Center via TheHollywoodTimes.today)
Because of their lack of help, you can imagine how shocked I was to get a call from a THWC representative. A representative who said that she wanted me to complete a survey for the sake of funding for the clinic.
I made clear to her two, perhaps three, times that I wasn’t serviced. Still, after that, she pressed. And after the first or second time, when I said that I had to find services on my own, she acted as though the THWC was justified in seeking funding. That I should do the survey. However, I found other resources because of my efforts and because there are other, competing clinics serving the transgender population. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the THWC.
Another clinic, the Trans Wellness Center, started helping me the moment I told them I was seeking resources.
The Trans Wellness Center started helping me the moment I told them I was seeking resources. (graphic credit: Trans Wellness Center)
Also, the communication that did exist from an employee named Sedera Vargas was really poor. And another THWC employee, Chloe Bryant, was difficult. I don’t even know if she passed along information I sent, at least once — I had to touch base.
I also spent a few hours to do more intake paperwork that I’ve ever encountered with one organization. It was for naught.
Shame on the THWC for trying to get funding through at least one individual who they didn’t even service.
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The author makes about $6 per article on one of three platforms on which she writes. Through the others, she doesn’t make a cent. Please support the author via her Patreon.
Alysha V. Scarlett 